Breeding Ground
p. 58 · Read in the full issue
Suva Slums Are A TB Breeding Ground
From Our Own Correspondent
Suva, May 21.
WERE the delegates to the South Paci fic Conference shown the slum areas of Suva? This question has become one of Suva’s topics of cynical debate, with the answer, of course, in the nega tive.
Some of Suva’s slum-tenement pockets are still European-owned, but wealthy Indians and a number of Chinese are the owners of the worst blots. In certain corners the conditions would appal social workers in the slums of the great cities overseas—4o people are known to be jammed, at times, into one medium-sized room.
Fiji raised £60,000 to fight TB, but it is notable that at Suva, where the inci dence of the disease is highest, the condi tions that breed TB are rapidly worsening with the swamping increase of population in the overcrowded areas.
The South Pacific Conference heavily underlined the importance of health questions to the indigenous peoples of the Islands. At Suva the slum conditions in which thousands of mostly self-respect ing Fijians are compelled to live provide a curious anomaly.